Seven Minutes Of The Dark Knight In December

It started on the Brazilian site Omelette but since then, it's started to spread across the web like wild fire: apparently, a seven minute sequence from The Dark Knight is to play in IMAX cinemas this December, before screenings of I Am Legend.

Now, it makes sense that this will be the bank job sequence, taking place parallel to events in Batman Begins and already teased with production stills. It's one of four sequences in the film that have been filmed in the IMAX format and it's entirely possible that, in fact, it won't be part of the main release (though I expect it will, and so will the other three such scenes, just curiously reformatted to 'fit' a standard 35mm aspect ratio, be it cinemascope or widescreen). On the upside, at least when this IMAX 'prologue' is presented as a seven minute stand-alone piece, the problems I noted previously about shifting between aspect ratios will be moot.

This is one heck of a trailer/stunt and I'm sure the IMAX box office of I Am Legend is going to benefit greatly from this addition. It's obvious that 'the theatrical experience' is getting more and more like a theme park as home cinema eats into the straight-up viewing experience (just like the 1950s all over again, but seemingly more lasting) and now my curiosity is flaring: just what tricks will be played on us in the next few years to squeeze those ever inflating ticket prices out of our stony wallets?

New Dark Knight Set Pics Offer Spoilers

A user of the X-Realms messageboard has posted a number of on-set pictures from The Dark Knight. Amongst the spoilery material therein is a look at Heath Ledger without Joker make-up and dressed as a cop.

The images were actually posted some time back, but the link surfaced on IGN today and that's how it came to my attention.

I'm on the record as not really caring much about The Dark Knight, but this is quite a big piece of news for Batfans, isn't it? The rendering of The Joker as a loon who applies make-up rather than has deathly-pallor by disfigurement? Does this put him more on a par with mask wearing psychopaths like Jason, Michael Myers (or, on this side of the screen, John Wayne Gacy) than the grand-guignol and penny dreadful antecedents I had previously associated with the character? And is this a bad thing?

I actually find it quite interesting.

Gotham Building Blown To Kingdom Come

I'll reveal just what the building to get blown up is, but be warned: that info is what many would consider a spoiler...

It seems that special effects just aren't special enough for The Dark Knight. Fox news have video footage of a Chicago building coming down. In the plot, the building is playing Gotham Hospital. Naughty Joker.

Latino Review's Dark Knight Spoilers - UPDATED AGAIN

I have one gem of a Dark Knight piece and hopefully, I'll be able to publish it very soon. It's a corker. It's something people really want to see...

In the meantime, I missed the Latino Review piece and have been asking around, looking for some idea of what they had originally posted. This is the best I can do at the minute, but please, please, if you have any more info, please let me know. Obviously, this is a post jam packed full of spoilers, and if you're at all worried about that, don't read on. At all.

The police get rather distracted by the 'fake Batman' I told you about before.

Harvey Dent is 'Two Faced' by The Joker. It happens rather late in the story, but there's still time for him to seek revenge.

Batman prevents Two Face from killing The Joker, and this is when Dent finally goes utterly nuts.

The Joker manages to get Batman's identity out of Rachel Dawes, but Bruce uses the fake Batman to his advantage to confuse The Joker and get away with it.

Dawes dies.

[EDIT:And now, thanks to Tourettes Haiku I have even more. Here's the spoiler material - possibly verbatim - from the Latino Review piece:

THE BATMAN WANNABE: There’s a fake Batman roaming the streets of Gotham City. He's 'for' the cops, they believe that he's the real Batman. And it's a connection to the Batman Begins scene with Bruce, Henri Ducard, Ra's Al Ghul and many ninjas, the 'invisibility' scene.

THE BAT-POD: The “motorcycle” is not a part of the Thumbler (the ‘Batmobile’ vehicle Batman drove in Batman Begins), it's another Lucius Fox's gadget. The Bat-Pod has one big action sequence in the film.

TWO-FACE: Many have clamored for information since it was revealed that Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart) will become Two-Face in The Dark Knight. However Two-Face has only one scene, which comes at the end of the film.

RACHAEL DAWES: Remember the Joker’s dialogue in the trailer? TONIGHT PEOPLE WILL DIE, I’M A MAN OF MY WORD” It’s from a big party scene where the Joker (Heath Ledger) kidnaps Rachel Dawes (now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) and she tells the Joker that Bruce Wayne is The Batman. However Batman has a scene in the film with the Joker and through some trickery has The Batman and Bruce Wayne in the same room. This causes Joker to think that Bruce Wayne is NOT Batman and that Rachel lied to him. Rachel is also having an affair/having a romance with one of the main characters of the film and, no, it is not Bruce Wayne.

THE BIG FINALE: Someone dies - a main character dies. We aren’t going to tell you who dies but what we can say is that promotional materials already reveal who dies, you just have to look for it. You can slice through Latino Review’s Dark Knight photos and find the huge clue? IT COULD! However this is a big fight at the end in which Harvey wants his revenge, wants to kill The Joker, but Batman stops him and Harvey is going crazy. And now he is against The Batman.

The Joker now knows that Bruce is Batman, but Harvey does not.

Most of this is stuff we've heard before - indeed, some of it is in that spoiler video I posted a long time ago - but some of it is new. What's more, there's plenty of stuff not revealed. For example: how Harvey Dent is involved in the trickery that makes Batman and Bruce Wayne appear in the same room; how many doubles and pairs there are throughout the film - Batman/fake Batman, Batman/Joker, Two Face, the two boats of hostages and so on...]

[EDIT: And BrokenUnion are now disputing these spoilers outright]

Digital Dent

I've been told by a rock-solid source that Cinesite in London are to be handling the CG FX for Two Face in The Dark Knight, with their work due to start in earnest in November. I mention this just so you know it isn't an entirely make-up based look.

[EDIT: Actually, my source has read this published post and told me, actually, it's Framestore CFC and I 'misinterpreted their clues' to the FX house. My mistake, and quite a dumb one, really. I could explain the confusion in how I thought they meant one and not the other, but they asked me not to, as it might just reveal who they are...]

But why not make-up, I wonder? The only solid reasons I can think of are all mouth-based - teeth showing through a wound, maybe, or impossible mouth movements. But I don't know for sure. Hopefulyl more info will be forthcoming.

Cinesite are, frankly, brilliant and have a great back catlogue of work - from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to Hot Fuzz.

[EDIT: And Framestore CFC are similarly excellent, if not more so. Their work on Children of Men is amongst the greatest FX work ever completed. As well as the digital Dent they'll also be creating the virtual set extensions for the Hong Kong scenes and some CG stand-in Batmen]

Dark Knight Teaser Gone But Not... Er... Gone

The old links for the Dark Knight trailer and Why So Serious website now redirect to Rent-A-Clown. Thankfully, you can still nab a copy of the trailer from Sendspace if you need to.

Why So Serious?

There's been a lot of Dark Knight action in the last 24 hours or so. Flash mobs, teaser trailers, stills and chat. The still is below and you can either stream or download the trailer from an official site, but the flash mobs, well, if you want one now, you'll have to organise your own.

Coin Toss

[EDIT: Spoiler warning! Sorry this wasn't in here in the first place]

Thanks to the little line of you who e-mailed me the news that Two Face will be seen with his coin in The Dark Knight. Some of us had been wondering.

Guess Who Has Shown Up In Gotham Now

I've had most parts of this news corroborated by a few voices, so I'm happy to report it all in good faith. Be wary of spoilers from the very next sentence onwards.

So, not only are more and more people telling me that Anthony Michael Hall is playing Edward Nygma in The Dark Knight, as we discussed before, I've now recieved a report of scenes filmed with Aaron Eckhart...

...drumroll please...

...in Two Face makeup. Yep - Two Face is in the Dark Knight too.

Here's the description of the make-up:

55/40. Scarring across the nose just a tad bit. One of his eye is deformed. And little bubbles across the scarring (They're manips that look similar). Wicked cool.

55/40? What's the remaining 5?

The scene may or may not have involved Two Face shooting Flass, the corrupt cop from Batman Begins. That's one person's version of events, and I'm okay with that.

[EDIT: And for those you of you who think this news piece is simply announcing Eckhart's casting, why not actually read it? There's been plenty of comments to that end, but I rejected them. The news here isn't Eckhart. The news is that he's in Two Face make-up - that is to say, Dent gets Two Faced in this film]

Bat Droppings

I'm sorry, but I'm getting sick of all of these Dark Knight e-mails from people I don't know. I just don't know if I should be grateful to receive them or angry at people for wasting my time - and, as you may see it, your time too. I guess the answer is that I don't know - yet. If/when any of them turn out to be true, then I'll definitely be grateful. Retroactive gratitude is the best I can offer, I guess.

Here's two completely different, utterly conflicting pieces of information I have received in the last couple of days. As far as I know, they could both be a complete and utter crock, but let's take a look.

Oh... and if anybody can send me a copy of the script and put me out of my misery, I'd love them forever.

Piece one comes from the original source of the Riddler story from a few days back:

Here's the deal on Nygma : when I was prepping XXX XXXXX XXXXX I mentioned to the XXXX XXXXXXX manager something about Nygma. "Can't believe Hall is playing Nygma".

He turned, rubbed his forehead and sighed.

"Hall isn't playing Nygma. No one is. The suit was for a joke for Bale."

This [suit] was presented to Bale along with the Nipple-Suit. This was a joke played by Nolan and Goyer. And now I feel like a jack-ass for reporting falsely to you.

Piece two comes from a new 'scooper', claiming that they feel safe reporting to me as I have already run something on the subject:

Hi Mr. Connelly,

I am writing to share my knowledge regarding Mr. Anthony Hall's role in The Dark Knight. I had the privilege of working on the set for one day as I was X XXXX XX X XXXXXXXXX XXXX. On one particular scene we were able to see a brief dialogue between Mr. Hall and some other actor. Nothing big except for the fact that the other man calls him Mr. Nygma! Yes, from what I've seen and heard the future Riddler is indeed in the movie! Apart from that I can also tell, that his character wears a dark suit and a green tie. I think the tie is the only connection with his alter ego. Also he seemed rather nice and definitely not so crazy as Jim Carrey's portrayal of The Riddler in Batman Forever.

I'm writing this because I know that this was spoiled by someone else from the crew at your site, so I think by adding my small share it won't be such a big thing for the director and studio. I'm a big Batman fan myself and like others can't wait to see the finished movie.

And that's the pair of them.

Now, the Goyer comment in the first piece pretty much exposes it as fraud. Goyer has almost nothing to do with the project - certainly now that it is in production.

As for the second piece... I'm definitely sceptical, not least as I believe that Hall's scenes are to be with Morgan Freeman and he's not just 'some actor'. But maybe it's all true. Who am I to say?

Does anybody out there have any verifiable Dark Knight info? At all?

The Bat-Pod On The Today Show - Now Updated With Direct Download Link

MSN have a clip of the Bat-Pod on this morning's Today show. Get a good look at the vehicle and - if memory serves, I have her name correct - Meredith Viera atop it like Bale's double will have to be.

[EDIT: And thanks to Verbal, you can now directly download this video for the ages. He went awry at first, then sorted it out. Brilliant stuff]

Dark Knight, Deep Throat

The Dark Knight rumours are getting more and more fun by the day. I'm not sure how many of them I believe - not many, anyway - but I'm honestly enjoying the circus of it all. There's less real news than in a double page spread of the Daily Sport, and twice as many fake boobs, but it's every bit as entertaining. The 'Hitler's Bus Found on Moon' of film stories.

This might be the most amusing set of 'spoilers' so far - not least because they come in the form of a video. To share it with you, I tried to upload it using Blogger's new video button, but that seemed to stall, so I settled for YouTube.

Now, I can't really make out every word, so you might not be able to either, but the general drive is clear: details of two scenes, each of them key, and each of them fairly well supported by things I already know for sure from other sources.

I'm expecting more of this stuff, which could be cool, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Many of the anonymous e-mailers who send me stuff (even stuff that turns out to be 100% accurate) fail to ever rematerialise. I guess we each only know what we know.

A lot of this is hard to hear but the odd gem is crystal clear - if you pardon the expression. Enjoy.

[EDIT: Video removed. Unfortunately]

Batman's 2-Wheel Ride Revealed

The LA Times have a little piece about the Bat-pod, Batman's motorbike thing from The Dark Knight. It seems to leave him a little exposed and...

...well, I won't get too far into knocking it until I find out how it works in the film. There's another image at the LA Times.

Dark Knight Spoilers...?

I've received an e-mail that purports to reveal plenty of Dark Knight spoilers. A fascinating e-mail, if you ask me. I know many of you would like to read them too, so here they are. Some pieces are edited, others explicitly censored - all to protect the innocent, as it were.

Hello Mr. Connelly.

I'm XXXXXXX XX XXX XXX of The Dark Knight. I've learned major spoilers regarding the film. Both in reading script pages that XXXX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX and XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXX being filmed - one with Anthony Michael Hall.

MAJOR SPOILER 1 :

Jason Bard is indeed in the film. He has a spin-off (kind've) plot in the film. Jason Bard is introduced when a stoned man is pulled from a vehicle, Black tape covering his eyes. He apparently has been dealing cocaine and other toxic chemicals, the chemicals from the first film (Scarecrows plot) is in-fact a major selling item. It sells massively on the street, many alike want to expierence the "Journey To Death". Onto Bard, though - Bard is in the film when the Drugee is pulled from the van.

Apparently, Some (Mobster..) killed his wife, and killing a drug user will help relieve him of this fact. Quite stupid, but I saw this being filmed as well as a script page (Page 67, and Page 54, being passed along the set). Both pages that describe the Bank Robbery and JASON BARD struggling with the muzzle of his gun up against the drugee's head.

Thats all I know regarding "Jason Bard".

MAJOR SPOILER TWO:

Anthony Michael Hall is indeed playing a good guy. Mr. Edward Nygma. Correct. This was filmed for one brief moment. X XXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XX XXX XXXX XXXX-XXXX XXXXXX.

MAJOR PLOT SPOILER THREE:

The Jokers Suit is pure awesomeness. The suit was a dark purple. I mean DARK purple.

And finally:

The Harley Quinzell rumor is false. Word got around the set that Quinzell was making a cameo appearance, but NO.

As I said, fascinating stuff. Thank you very much to the e-mailer.

[EDIT: The e-mailer revealed some information about their means of acquiring this information which gave rise to a test. It revealed to me some details they must definitely know. So, as a test, I sent them a jpeg, expecting a certain response. At time of writing, they have failed to respond. This suggests that all of the above should be taken as nothing more than rumour. Soon enough, it will either start to line up with official information or not, and then we can make another, further informed, judgment on how accurate these spoilers are]

Dark Knight Teaser Poster

I'm told that this is the official teaser poster for The Dark Knight. What do you think?


It isn't great - the logo is too low, it should be higher for sake of balance. Which alone makes me suspicious. And then there's the font. But it may well be real - I've seen plenty of teaser posters this dodgy before now.

The Batsuit Pops Up In Entertainment Weekly

Here's a look at the Batsuit as it appears in Entertainment Weekly as of today - click upon it to make it bigger. AintItCool posted the scan first, I believe. They've got the contacts - as I've said before, and will doubtlessly say again. Yep, they really seem to be most scoopers' first port of call.

Latino Review Have A Look At The Joker's Motor - Updated With Photo

Go take a look. Not what I was expecting, I have to admit. I guess high speed car chases are quite squarely out of the picture, then.

[EDIT: LatinoReview ditched the picture, apparently with no explanation, so here it is, below]

[EDIT: Everybody seems to think it is a fake. Why didn't LatinoReview just leave it in place and 'fess up, then? Are they being wimps?]

The Batbike As Pulled From Aint It Cool News

Last night, AintItCool ran the following image of the Batbike. They've since deleted the entire post. Their version of events is that this is a real Batbike, as it were, just from a Batman ride, not from The Dark Knight.

I don't know how true this story is. I'm interested in why they'd remove the entire post relating to this image whereas several other fakes have been left up for all time and just marked as fake.

There's something they're not telling us.

Imax/Batman Press Release

I'd like to present the really frustrating bits and pieces from the new IMAX/Dark Knight press release, confirming just how screwed The Dark Knight is going to be.

Here's the confirmation of a disruptive ratio change:

The marriage of footage filmed with IMAX and 35mm cameras in the final feature will have a major impact on the audience's viewing experience, whether seeing The Dark Knight in an IMAX or traditional theatre. When the scenes shot on IMAX cameras are shown in IMAX theatres, the aspect ratio will morph to 1.43 to 1, expanding the image to fill the entire screen and magnifying the overall effect, both literally and figuratively.

And here's Nolan not understanding why a decent sized cinemascope screen beats IMAX hands down (at least for this kind of film):

Director Christopher Nolan added, "In continuing the story of such a great icon I'm thrilled to be able to expand the scope of the film, not just in terms of its story, but in giving Batman and The Joker the largest possible canvas on which to face off. No existing technology compares with the IMAX format in terms of its ability to throw the audience into the action, and we're very proud and excited to use this technology in a way that no one has before."

Death To Anthony Michael Hall?

[EDIT: Read right to the bottom, please]

Below is an e-mail I received this evening, pretty much verbatim - but be warned, it contains what may be seen as serious Dark Knight spoiler material.

Hello Brendon, I have been a fan of your blog for a pretty long time. Right now I'm working as part of the crew of the Dark Knight film. Right now I don't do much, mostly just helping around the sets, but I like it.

There's a small restaurant around that some of the set people eat at called "Little Katie's". It's known by most of us that Chris Nolan regularly eats there as well. People have of course tried to listen for plot points of the story, but during lunch he doesnt usually talk about it. Anyway, the crew was given a free day a while ago, and I decided to grab something to eat at Little katies. To my surprise, Chris Nolan and Charles Rovan were having lunch aswell. I grabbed the booth behind theirs and listened to their conversation.

They stayed about two hours and didn't talk much about the film, until about 10 minutes before they left. Chris Nolan referenced Anthony Michael Halls DEATH in the film. I listened much closer, and I heard a little more. From what I heard, it sounds like Anthony Michael Hall is indeed a wannabe batman, or a "Imitation Hero" as Chris nolan put it. I also heard Nolan reference the scene in which Batman beats the "Imitation hero" to DEATH. I'm not sure why Batman would do that, because thats about the time they left, but I was stunned.

I went to Batman-on-Film with this tidbit, but was ignored, so I sent it again and again, with no response. I figured if Jett over at BOF doesnt want this, then it's yours to do with whatever you want. I hope I helped, Brendon.

(I love it when a source just lets me cut and paste their e-mail rather than, oh, I dunno... pretend I don't know which actress is up for the exciting comics-to-film role.)

Well, I have heard from a source I know to be linked to the film who also thought Anthony Michael Hall had a role like this (they'd worked it out by process of elimination) so this strikes me as a potentially very interesting piece of the Dark Knight puzzle. Does anybody else know any more information? And does anybody know why I can't find Little Katie's referenced online anyplace? Is this all just a hoax? Or is Little Katie's just too little?

Let's give the e-mailer the benefit of the doubt for now...

[EDIT: Or maybe not. Here's a rebuttal from Batman On Film:

I never received an email from this source as he indicated.

So, don't believe it. As if you were ever going to anyway]